What the Potteries Gave to Basketball

The Trenton basketball team 1896-97. Fred Cooper is bottom left with
the ball, his friend Al Bratton is bottom right.

In 1896, Frederick Cooper, a distant American cousin of mine, earned himself a place in the history books through the simple act of accepting a fee. Several years earlier, a dynamic new game called basketball had been invented that was gaining a strong following in the various YMCAs on America's east coast. Fred, already a keen sportsman had like many others quickly warmed to the game, becoming the star player and captain of the highly successful Trenton YMCA team that for the previous three years had dominated the emerging leagues. At first the new game had been played for fun and entertainment, but the groundswell of support soon saw seats being sold for popular teams and inevitably the money trickled back to the players that the crowds wanted to see. The result was that in 1896 Fred was the first to accept payment for a game and in doing so became the world's first professional basketball player.

Though he would make his name in the United States, Fred Cooper was actually born at 21 Bethesda Street, Shelton on 25 March 1874, the fifth of seven children – six boys and one girl – born to Thomas Cooper and Ann, nee Simpson. Fred's father, Thomas, had started out as a working potter but over the years had moved into small scale pottery manufacture. However, in the mid-1880s, in the wake of what was later described in Fred's obituary as 'some business reverses', Thomas and Ann decided to emigrate and join their eldest child, William who was already settled in the States, working at the Greenwood Pottery in Trenton, New Jersey. The Coopers left Britain early in 1886, travelling as steerage passengers (i.e. 3rd class) aboard the SS England, arriving at New York on 27 May 1886, from where they made the relatively short journey south west across the state to Trenton. As it turned out, Thomas would only enjoy his new home in America for a few years, dying in 1891 at the age of 56, but his wife and children settled into their new lives and over time became valued members of the local community.

Trenton, New Jersey, USA

On arriving in the States, Fred and his younger brother Albert, or 'Al' as he became best known, had been enrolled in the Centennial School where they soon got involved in sports and stood out as skilled footballers, a game their father had taught them. Fred especially proved to be an all-round sportsman, also taking up baseball, competitive running and later becoming a fine billiards player and a good bowler. His successes, though were at first eclipsed by his older brother, Arthur, who back in Britain had been such a skilled footballer that in the early to mid 1880s he played for Stoke F.C.'s junior team, Stoke Swifts. Arthur seems to have stayed behind for a year after the rest of the family emigrated, perhaps to help the Swifts in their attempt to win the junior league cup. Once this was over though, in 1887, he too took a ship to the States, but not before being presented with a handsome medallion by his team mates and the club. Once in the States, Arthur's success had continued, and it was not long before he was picked as a member of the All-America soccer team.

While his brother's career blossomed, Fred left school and found work as a sanitary-ware presser at one of Trenton's pot banks, a job he would do for the better part of three decades. He continued to pursue his love of sport in his spare time through the local YMCA, which acted as a youth club for boys and young men of religious families like the Coopers. The two became great friends and they shared more than a love of sport, as Bratton was also an emigrant from the Potteries.

Albert Edward Bratton, was the eldest of several children born to joiner William Bratton and Sarah Ann, nee Pope. Born in Hanley on 6 August 1875, shortly after his fourth birthday he with his parents and his younger sister Hannah, boarded the American Line steamer Lord Clive at Liverpool and emigrated to the United States. They landed at Philadelphia on 19 August 1879 and in the census a year later they were ensconced in Lawrence, Mercer County, New Jersey, where William had abandoned his former trade and found work in Trenton’s pottery industry. Here the couple had more children over the next few years, but several died quite young. William and Sarah nevertheless settled into their new home and became involved in many of the same activities enjoyed by the Cooper family, with religion and a love of sport being cornerstones of their lives.

Al left school at the age of 11 and started work at the Eagle Pottery and he would later work for the John Moses and Greenwood factories. Again, like the Coopers, his family had a tradition of sporting prowess, his father William Bratton being a skilled billiards player who would later look after the billiards room at the Trenton YMCA. When he was old enough, Al joined the ‘Y’ as it was generally known and took part in many of the sports on offer there, notably football. It was here that he and Fred Cooper formed their initial sporting partnership and carried it over when the two of them decided to try their hand at the new game of basketball that was sweeping through the YMCA branches.

Only a few years had passed since Canadian-born training instructor James Naismith had dreamt up the indoor game to placate a group of YMCA trainees at the School for Christian Workers, Springfield, Massachusetts, who had been chafing at their inactivity during the long winter months. Though rough-hewn at first, with early games resembling pitched battles between oversized teams, basketball proved an immediate hit and when Naismith published an article on the game it was quickly taken up by YMCA branches along America's east coast. Soon, matches were drawing sizeable crowds and more and more teams sprang up, one of which was Trenton YMCA.

Fred Cooper and Al Bratton first joined the Trenton YMCA basketball team for the 1893-94 season and had an immediate and lasting impact on how the game was played. In those early days, basketball was a game of individual dribblers working their way through the opposition before attempting a shot at the basket, a method that favoured heavy-set players who could push their way through the field. According to one of basketball's early chroniclers, Cooper and Bratton changed this, creating a more fluid game by drawing on their footballing skills to develop a system of short, swift passes between them on the run, a style of play that completely unbalanced opposing teams.

'The Trenton system of passing was definite. It meant to carry the ball to the opponent's basket in order that a goal might be scored, and time and again I have seen Cooper and Bratton in those early days, pass the ball back and forth between them – no one else touching it – and score against all the efforts of the entire opposing team. I have seen them do this trick away from home and witnessed the spectators rise en masse and cheer the brilliant exhibition in spite of the fact that it was being done by invading players.'

They were initially members of the YMCA second team where they distilled the basics of their new style of play, before challenging the first team to a game. The ‘seconds’ led by Cooper and Bratton won easily and as a result the two of them were quickly elevated to the varsity team. Here Al gained the reputation ‘as a lightning fast dribbler’ and Fred ‘as a corking good shot’, and around them they built a winning basketball team. 

For the next three seasons, the Trenton YMCA dominated the game in New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania, by which time Fred was the team captain and unofficial coach. Despite his refinements to the game, rough play characterised basketball in those free-wheeling and largely unregulated years, with physical injuries being an all too common feature of play, both on and off the court. Not only was there brawling between players, but partisan crowds took whatever opportunities came their way to try and injure or discomfort the rival team and as a result fighting between players and spectators was not unusual. Though the YMCA had quickly lauded Naismith's new game for promoting a useful spirit of 'muscular Christianity' - a healthy body breeding a healthy mind - the rough-housing and unsportsmanlike behaviour drew the Association's displeasure and increasingly basketball teams deserted the YMCA gyms, or were ousted by outraged officials and had to find other venues to play in.

Warren Street, Trenton, with the Masonic Temple nearest the camera.

Such seems to have been the case at the Trenton YMCA. Unspecified 'trouble in the gymnasium', followed by a string of disagreements between the branch secretary and the YMCA team saw the basketball players shifting their base to the Masonic Temple, a large building in downtown Trenton. Here the team made use of the large reception room on the top floor, where a 12 feet high mesh fence with gates at either end was built enclosing the court. This 'cage' was a new innovation, built to stop the ball going out of play so readily and prevent some of the troubles caused by resultant clashes with spectators. The Trenton team were the first to employ this device and though its use eventually fell out of favour, its early employment coined the term 'cager' as a snappy way to refer to a basketball player, a term that is apparently still in use today.

It was in this cage that Fred Cooper and his team mates made history by playing what is presumed to be the first professional basketball game on 7 November 1896, against Brooklyn YMCA. The game had been advertised in a local paper three days earlier (another first) and provisions were made for a sizeable crowd, raised seating being built around the court. Seats were priced at 25c, standing room cost 15c. Nor would the organisers be disappointed by the turn out, 'a large and fashionable audience' of 700 turning up to watch.

The Trenton team came out smartly dressed in red sleeveless tops, black knickerbockers and stockings and white ankle shoes, while Brooklyn probably wore a grey and white gym kit. There were seven in each team, two forwards, a centre, two side centres and two defenders. This was before the days of the tall men in basketball, all of them being average sized, Fred himself was only 5 feet, 7 inches tall. In accordance with the practice of the time, the home team supplied the referee and the visitors chose the umpire.

The game started with seven minutes of 'fierce playing' before Newt Bugbee, one of Trenton's side centres scored the first goal. Fred did not disappoint either, leading the scoring by gaining six points for three baskets, while a player named Simonson scored Brooklyn's only point with a free throw three minutes before the game finished. Trenton's team played the full 40 minutes, while Brooklyn had one substitution. The final score was a 16-1 victory for Trenton.

The memorial plaque to the first
professional match.
Photo courtesy of Grace Cooper

Following the game, Trenton's manager hosted a supper for both teams at the Alhambra Restaurant, where the Trenton players received their historic payment. There has been some disputing the amount actually paid to the players after the various expenses were deducted, but the accepted version of events was that quoted in Fred's obituary in 1955. 'All the players collected $15  each, but Fred Cooper was the captain and manager (sic) and was paid off first. Thus he became the first professional basketball player in the world. He was proud of this distinction all his life.'

It could be argued that Fred was actually only semi-professional as he still needed to work as a potter, but he was the first to be paid to play. The move was controversial as amateur governing bodies of the time frowned to the payment of players, but that signal act was the first step on the path to the fully professional basketball leagues of today. The floodgates were thus opened and could not be closed, and almost as an ironic aside to this fait accompli, many versions of the story added that Fred as the captain was paid a dollar more than his compatriots - which if true also made him the game's first highest paid player. 

As they had with the new swift style of play and Trenton's 'cage', other teams quickly followed Trenton down the professional route. This in turn led to the formation in 1898 of the first professional league, the National Basketball League, which Trenton under Fred Cooper's captaincy promptly dominated, winning the first two NBL titles. By this time the team had been joined by Fred's younger brother, Albert. Tall and handsome and as skilled as his brother, Al Cooper proved to be an accomplished goal scorer and easily the best player in the new league.

Despite their successes, during the first few NBL seasons, Fred was growing disillusioned with the Trenton team. His brother Al and Harry Stout, Trenton's top scorer did not get along, while the team's co-owners had also had a falling out. Keen for a fresh start, at the beginning of the 1900-1901 season, he quit the Trenton squad to coach a new team in nearby Burlington. The result, though, was embarrassing. Though Fred was an excellent coach, his new team lacked Trenton's pool of of talented players, the result being that Burlington lost its first eight games before Fred gave up. He was immediately snapped up to coach the Bristol team, before going on to coach at Princeton University between 1904-1906. It was not until 1910 that Fred returned to coach the struggling Trenton Eastern Basketball League team and did so successfully, winning the EBL title the following year. He was replaced as the coach the next year, but returned to coach Trenton one more time ten years later. His last stint as a team coach was at Rider College in the 1920s.

Fred and Catherine and their eldest children
Thomas and Mabel.
Photo courtesy of Susan Corrigan.

Alongside his sporting career, Fred enjoyed a happy family and social life. In 1901, he had married Catherine Carr and the couple had three children. Like his siblings he was an active member of the Trenton community, becoming in time a church elder, and a member of various local and national patriotic orders and Masonic lodges. As noted earlier he had worked for many years as a sanitary-ware presser at the Enterprise Pottery, which generously allowed him time off for his coaching duties, but he quit his job in 1922, when on the strength of his sporting career, he was offered a position as a director of local sports grounds, a posting that eventually led to him becoming head of the city recreation department. 

After Fred Cooper had left the team, Al Bratton also trod new ground, though seemingly with less rancour and he stayed attached to the YMCA sports scene for the rest of his life. In 1906, he became manager and director of the Delaware Valley YMCA basketball team and two years later was captain of the New Jersey basketball team. That year he was also made membership secretary of the local ‘Y’ and in 1910 was selected as the assistant physical director of the William G. Cook YMCA in Trenton, being later promoted to director and secretary. He remaining a stalwart of the Cook branch until it closed in 1931, after which he joined the Central YMCA as membership secretary, remaining there until he retired in 1935. Despite these increasingly demanding calls on his time, Al still remained an enthusiastic player, continuing with football and basketball, but also taking on baseball and in the 1920s he became keen on tennis, which he played with great success. 

Al was also a member of numerous church and fraternal groups and was married twice, first to Hannah Shaw in 1901 with whom he had a daughter, Alma Victoria, his only child. Hannah died in 1938 and two years later Al married a widow, Evelyn Snyder Curtis at Fallsington, Pennsylvania, becoming step father to her nine children. He is to this day fondly remembered by members of his family, who recall his love of Fallsington, which was the venue for many happy family holidays.

Those two old friends, Fred and Al, so attuned to each other on the pitch or court, enjoyed happy retirements in the bosom of their families and communities and fittingly died within a month of each other early in 1955. Fred passed away on 6 January at the age of 80, being buried in Greenwood Cemetery, Trenton, while Al suffered a heart attack at his home on 5 February and died later that day at McKinley Hospital, aged 79. The local papers gave both men fulsome obituaries, while the National Basketball Association, heir to the early leagues that they had helped to forge, did not forget their pioneering sportsmen and the leap they had taken in popularising basketball. In February 1955, the NBA presented the city of Trenton with a bronze plaque ostensibly in honour of Fred Cooper, but also the Trenton team, and their ground breaking professional match, which was placed on the site of Trenton's old Masonic Temple.

Reference: Robert W. Peterson, Cages to Jump Shots: Pro Basketball's Early Years (New York, 1990) pp. 32-37.  Fred Cooper's obituary, Trenton Evening Times, 7 January 1955. Al Bratton's obituary
 
Additional Cooper family information courtesy of Grace Cooper and Susan Corrigan. 

Additional Bratton family information courtesy of Ed Truxal.

Website: Pro Basketball Encyclopedia.